The main point is they went from 2 speakers to one and moved it to the back- away from you. For those of us who really value quality sound while surfing- the recently reduced iPad 1 is looking better and better.
Same Ram, same screen, insignificant weight and thickness reductions, no use for camera on a tablet...
Would a slightly faster CPU really make a 2 second difference in web page load speed?
Apple has never discussed the RAM, but there is no reason to believe that it doesn't have at least 512MB.
2x is not a "slightly faster" CPU, and a 9x faster GPU will be good; action games will be smoother and like the iPhone 4 the new GPU will allow for more complex textures, shading, and lighting.
So yes, and double speed CPU with at least twice as much RAM will make a significant difference in page processing time. The faster GPU also means that the pages will render quicker.
As far as the speaker, while this is speculation until there is a teardown, I'll take one stereo speaker over two mono speakers in the old one. Its also possible that the speaker still points in the same direction as the old iPad and Apple left more space in front to aid with sound and volume.
Come on ! They would have mentioned it if it was increased, or they did increase it to 512 and are embarrassed since most tablets have 1GB!
Just disappointed - I was ready to pick one up, but now may look for a bargain iPad1 !
Apple didn't announce the iPhone 4's RAM, even though it was doubled, but they did talk about the CPU and GPU, just like they have on the new iPad. I'm happy you won't buy one, one less person in line before me.